It is arguably the most recognizable image of the 20th century. A lone soldier teeters on the edge of a scorched rooftop, thrusting a red banner into the smoky Berlin air while a comrade steadies his legs. Below them, a city lies in ruins. This single frame, captured by Yevgeny Khaldei, defined the end of the Second World War for millions. But if you look closer at the Soviet flag over the Reichstag, the story gets messy. It’s a mix of raw bravery, staged propaganda, and a very famous pair of stolen watches.
History isn't a clean line.
The Battle of Berlin was a meat grinder. By April 1945, the Red Army had surrounded the city, and the Reichstag—the old German parliament building—became the symbolic "heart of the beast," even though the Nazis hadn't actually used it for years. Stalin wanted it. He wanted it bad. He specifically wanted a flag raised over it by May 1st, International Workers' Day. That pressure from the top created a chaotic, bloody race where multiple groups of soldiers tried to reach the roof first, often while the building was still crawling with German defenders in the basement.
The First Flags and the Bloodshed
Most people think the famous photo shows the very first moment a flag went up. It didn't. Not even close.
The fighting for the Reichstag was room-to-room, brutal, and dark. On the night of April 30, 1945, a group of Soviet soldiers including Mikhail Minin managed to scramble onto the roof. They didn't have a professional flagpole, so they improvised. They used a large piece of red cloth and fastened it to one of the statues on the building's parapet. This happened around 10:40 PM.
But it was pitch black. No photographers were there. No one saw it except the men in the smoke.
By the next morning, German snipers and artillery had actually knocked that first flag down. The "official" flag—the one designated as Victory Banner No. 5—wasn't raised until the early hours of May 1st by Aleksei Berest, Mikhail Yegorov, and Meliton Kantaria. Even then, the fighting wasn't over. The Germans still held the cellar. It was a weird, terrifying standoff where the roof was Soviet and the basement was German.
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Yevgeny Khaldei and the Art of the "Re-enactment"
Enter Yevgeny Khaldei. He was a naval officer and a photographer for TASS, the Soviet news agency. He arrived at the Reichstag on May 2nd, once the heavy firing had finally died down. He wasn't there to document a spontaneous moment; he was there to create an icon.
He actually brought three flags with him. His uncle, a tailor back in Moscow, had sewn them out of three red tablecloths specifically for this purpose. Imagine that—one of the most important symbols in world history started its life as a piece of dining room furniture.
Khaldei found three soldiers—Aleksei Kovalev, Abdulkhakim Ismailov, and Leonid Gorychev—and asked them to climb up. He shot thirty-six frames. He knew exactly what he was doing with the composition. He wanted the angle to capture the devastation of the city below to emphasize the scale of the victory.
The Mystery of the Extra Watch
When Khaldei got back to Moscow and developed his film, his editors noticed a problem. A big one.
The soldier supporting the flag-bearer, Abdulkhakim Ismailov, appeared to have a watch on each wrist. In the Soviet Union, "trophy hunting" or looting was officially discouraged (though it happened constantly). Having two watches suggested the soldier had been looting dead Germans. This would look terrible for the Red Army's image as "liberators."
Khaldei had to fix it. This was long before Photoshop, so he used a needle to literally scratch the watch off the soldier's right wrist on the negative. He also darkened the smoke in the background to make the scene look more dramatic and "war-like."
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Basically, the photo everyone knows is a manipulated image of a staged event involving a tablecloth. Does that make it "fake"? Not really. The soldiers were real. The ruins were real. The victory was real. But the moment was a construction.
Why the Reichstag?
You might wonder why the Soviets cared so much about this specific building. Hitler actually hated the Reichstag. After the 1933 fire, the Nazis never used it for parliament. They met at the Kroll Opera House instead. For the Germans, the building was a hollow shell.
But for the Allies, and especially for Stalin, the Reichstag represented the German state. Taking it was the ultimate checkmate. It was the visual proof that the "Thousand Year Reich" was over in just twelve years.
The Men in the Frame
For decades, the Soviet government pushed the narrative that Yegorov and Kantaria were the heroes in the photo. They were the ones who received the "Hero of the Soviet Union" medals. But the actual man holding the flag in Khaldei's photo, Aleksei Kovalev, was largely kept in the shadows for years.
Kovalev was just a 19-year-old kid from Kyiv. He survived the war and lived a relatively quiet life, eventually becoming a firefighter. He didn't seek the spotlight, and the Soviet machine didn't want to complicate the official story by admitting the famous photo used different soldiers than the ones who raised the "official" banner.
It's also worth noting the diversity of the group. Ismailov was Dagestani, Kantaria was Georgian (like Stalin), and Yegorov was Russian. This was intentionally highlighted later to show the "unity" of the Soviet republics against fascism.
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Legacy and Modern Controversy
Today, the Reichstag stands restored in Berlin, topped with a massive glass dome designed by Norman Foster. If you go inside and take the tour of the parliament's lower levels, you can still see the graffiti left behind by Soviet soldiers in May 1945. They used charred wood and chalk to write their names and where they were from. The German government chose to preserve these "voices of the victors" as a reminder of the building's history.
The photo itself remains a point of contention. Some historians call it pure propaganda. Others see it as a legitimate "representation" of a truth that was too dangerous to photograph in real-time.
Key Insights for History Buffs
If you're researching this for a project or just because you're a history nerd, here's what you need to keep straight:
- The Date Matters: The first flag went up on April 30th. The "official" banner went up May 1st. The photo was taken May 2nd.
- The Flag Material: It wasn't a standard-issue military flag. It was a makeshift banner made from tablecloths.
- The Editing: Khaldei's "doctoring" of the watches and smoke is one of the earliest and most famous examples of political photo manipulation.
- The Location: You can still see the soldier's graffiti in the modern Bundestag today.
What to Do Next
If you want to get a real sense of the atmosphere of those final days, don't just look at the one photo.
- Search for Yevgeny Khaldei’s other work. He took thousands of photos from Murmansk to Berlin. His photos of the Nuremberg trials are haunting.
- Visit the German Historical Museum in Berlin (or their online archive). They have a deep collection of artifacts from the Battle of Berlin that provide a much more nuanced view than a single propaganda shot.
- Read "The Fall of Berlin 1945" by Antony Beevor. It’s the definitive account of the brutality of the battle and explains the political pressure Stalin put on his generals to take the Reichstag at any cost.
- Look up the "Victory Banner" today. The original flag raised on May 1st is preserved in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow. It is considered a national relic.
Understanding the Soviet flag over the Reichstag requires looking past the red fabric and seeing the complex, often messy human reality behind the lens. It’s a story of incredible sacrifice, calculated political theater, and the desperate need to create a symbol of hope out of the ashes of a continent.